Marc Myers writes daily on jazz legends and legendary jazz recordings

April 2009

April 30, 2009

Throughout his six-decade career as a record producer, Creed Taylor has operated with bold strokes, subtleties and contrasts. The secret of his success has been to stick with jazz artists he likes best and create novel studio environments in which these artists can thrive and break new ground. [Photo of Creed Taylor and George Benson by Chuck Stewart]

Few producers have garnered the level of respect from jazz musicians that Creed has over the years. Virtually all of the artists who recorded for him at CTI back in the 1970s remain staunch loyalists. The same is true for legendary engineer Rudy Van Gelder, who told me a few months ago that working extensively with Creed changed his life. Many of these musicians have been quoted recently saying they'd love to work with him again. In fact, many are doing just that this summer on a CTI All Stars tour in Europe and Asia.

In Part 4 of my conversation with Creed about his CTI years, the legendary producer talks about Don Sebesky's Giant Box, how Grover Washington Jr. came to record Inner City Blues, Jim Hall's Concierto, the difference between George Benson and Wes Montgomery, and the tensions surrounding Nina Simone's Baltimore:

JazzWax: Is it fair to say that your approach at CTI was about juxtapositions? I'm thinking of Astrud Gilberto with Stanley Turrentine in 1971, for example.Creed Taylor: I've always found creating softness and edge interesting. On the album you've just mentioned, I had always thought Astrud's gentle vocal approach against Stanley's big sound would be interesting to hear. The helpless damsel against the take-charge tenor is a very seductive sound. That was the idea from the start.

JW: In April and May of 1973, you produced Don Sebesky's Giant Box. That was a massive date with 57 musicians.CT: It was really a tribute to Don [Sebesky] and all the artists who were under contract to CTI at the time. Don arranged it. It was meant to showcase quadraphonic fidelity [which had been introduced to the market in 1970]. We wanted to assemble the biggest possible orchestra and create an enormous sound to fill out the new four-speaker format.

JW: What did you think of quadraphonic sound?CT: I loved it. I had four speakers set up in each corner of the room so they were acoustically perfect. Then I'd sit in the middle and listen. Wow, the sound was amazing. It never occurred to me that there would be a marketing problem. You needed four speakers and a special piece of equipment to play this stuff, and the result sounded great. The problem ultimately was that the extra gear was too expensive for most people, who I think were pretty happy with stereo.

JW: So Giant Box was a quad session?CT: Yes. I figured what better way to embrace a new technology than to do it with Don as the arranger and with each one of the artists signed with CTI.

JW: How did you come up with the name of the album?CT: It was a giant orchestra and the two LPs came in a box [laughs]. Seriously, most of my album titles resonate because they simply describe what's inside. And they're direct.

JW: How did Giant Box sell?CT: The box didn’t fly as far as the world was concerned. The world wasn't ready for quadraphonic sound. Today, surround sound is standard with home theaters.

JW: In 1971, you produced Grover Washington Jr.'s Inner City Blues, one of the Kudu label's best-selling albums. Whose idea was it to use Washington?CT: A sheriff in Memphis.

JW: How so?CT: He arrested [alto saxophonist] Hank Crawford. It was supposed to be Hank’s record date. But Hank was caught with marijuana, that hideous, evil thing [laughs]. So they put him in the pokey. Someone called me at 1 p.m. to let me know. We were supposed to have started the date in New York at 10 a.m. Grover was in the sax section playing tenor. I went into the studio and told Grover that he had to play Hank's part. Grover said he had never recorded on alto and didn't own one. I rented one for him, and he played the date. As I was listening to Grover play in the booth, I knew immediately that he sounded great. Different than Hank, but great.

JW: How exactly? CT: Grover's sound made the sax statements a less obvious thing. Everything was the same as it would have been with Hank, except Grover was Grover. Hank was a blues master alto player and Grover had a more lyrical, romantic thing going. He had a sound that worked in contrast to what we were doing. I think that made the date quite different.JW: What did Crawford think of the album?CT: I didn’t ask him. Are you kidding? [laughs]

JW: There’s so much Marvin Gaye in Grover's playing.CT: Marvin became his best buddy in Detroit. Marvin loved what Grover had done with his songs.

JW: After a series of Kudu albums, Washington in 1974 recorded Mister Magic, which became a huge hit.CT: The rhythm section on that date had just come from a Roberta Flack session on which she sang that song. Eric Gale had the tape from one of the rundowns. He said, "This isn't very good, but you might want to let the guys hear it to see if they can get something going with it." Without a note being written by anybody, they sat down with [pianist and arranger] Bob James and started on a groove. Two hours later it locked in. Bob really created that thing along with the rhythm section. Grover knew how to play in the spaces and where not to play. He knew how to play like a soul singer.

JW: On Jim Hall's Concierto in 1975, were you afraid there would be too many heavyweights there?CT: No. I picked out the players and got [Don] Sebesky to write the charts. I had Jim, Chet Baker, Paul Desmond, Roland Hanna, Ron Carter and Steve Gadd on the date.

JW: You make it sound a little too easy.CT: [Laughs] But it is. If you can't make a record with those guys, you had better hang it up.

JW: But you’re not sitting in the booth eating a sandwich, are you?CT: No [laughing]. My job is to spot the flaws, push for the right feel and know when we had a master take. That's the one that moves me most.

JW: How was Chet?CT: As always, he was fantastic. Chet and Paul hadn’t worked together before. But each one could stand on his own. They fit together like peas in a pod.

JW: What role did Jim play if it was his date?CT: His role was to play Jim Hall. He and I talked about the song Concierto having a Jobim-legato feeling. We picked the other songs together.

JW: Did you discuss the date with Jim in advance?CT: That usually occurs. Then Don [Sebesky] and I talk about the feel we want, and he'd lay out the tracks [by recording them] on a Fender Rhodes [electric piano] so the guys knew what the arrangement was all about.

JW: Is there ever a peril when recording great artists that you can't hear anything bad? In other words, what are you listening for on Concierto?CT: I don’t have that answer. It’s either good because it hits me, or we need to try another take. It’s a very abstract thing. How do you describe a good piece of footage in a movie when the actors are all great? It’s an impossible question to answer. It occurs at the moment.

JW: But many so-called alternate takes can sound as good as the originals, yes?CT: Not to me. I’m listening for feeling. Is it rushed? Does it get into the slot? Sometimes I would call for another take because I thought the artists could deliver something even better. You have to know when you've reached that moment.

JW: When something feels perfect, where do you feel it?CT: I can’t describe that feeling.

JW: Did you build George Benson's White Rabbit in 1971 on the model that had worked so well with Wes Montgomery?CT: There was no Wes Montgomery model. There was Wes Montgomery. I would not refer to it as a model.

JW: Let me rephrase: I mean the mix of material: integrating originals with jazz interpretations of pop-rock standards?CT: Wes played a mix of contemporary and jazz. Everything that came together was a Wes product or a product through Wes' filter. George was a different type of guitar player.

JW: How so?CT: How is Stanley Turrentine different from Paul Desmond, or Chet Baker different from Freddie Hubbard?

JW: But you're illustrating with extremes, at opposite ends of the spectrum.CT: Yes, but it’s the personality here. That’s what the noun "style" is all about. It's easy to recognize a Van Gogh. What makes a painting valuable isn't only the setting on the canvas but the painter's style, which no one else can copy. Then you frame that style and light it in a certain way and exhibit it. George [pictured] was intense and so was Wes, but in different ways. Wes played distinctive octaves, which is why I asked him to play melodies in octaves.

JW: That's pretty subtle.CT: Art is quite abstract, let’s face it.

JW: What was it like producing Nina Simone's Baltimore in 1978? CT: A pleasure and a pain.

JW: Why?CT: In this particular case, I flew over with the rhythm section to Brussels to record with Nina there. She was living in Paris at the time because whenever she'd open her door here, the IRS would come in and clean out everything she had. JW: Where did you stay?CT: We all stayed at the Brussels Hilton. Every day we took a 20-mile drive to the studio, which was in a converted barn in the countryside. And each day we crossed the Waterloo Bridge [laughs], so help me [laughs].

JW: When did things get tough?CT: One day Nina’s check didn’t arrive on time in the U.S., and she attempted to throw the TV out the window of the hotel. Nina was a little mercurial.

JW: A CTI check?CT: Yes.JW: Did she actually pick up the TV?CT: Oh yeah. She caused a little damage in the room, which I covered, of course. She was a manic-depressive, which wasn’t a rare thing. At one point during the recording sessions, Nina again became really difficult. So I took her for a walk in this terrace garden right outside the studio.

JW: What did you say?CT: I said, “Hey Nina, you might not be feeling well but so far you’ve made me dislike what I do more than anything in the world, and what I do is record artists. I don’t like to record when you behave this way.”

JW: What happened?CT: She came back into the studio and settled down.

JW: Wow, that must have been about as hot as you’ve ever gotten.CT: I had to do that. I wasn't dealing with a normal situation.

JW: What does being difficult in the studio mean?CT: She wasn’t cooperating with the guys. She didn't want one musician or another to play in a particular place. She was slowing things down for seemingly no reason.

JW: Ultimately, were you pleased with what was recorded?CT: Oh yes. As far as I'm concerned, she’s untouchable as Nina Simone, the artist.

JW: When you had gone for a walk with Nina, were you ever afraid she would take a swing at you?CT: Oh, no. Nothing like that. Nina knew how I felt about her. The beauty of Nina's voice is that you believe what she sang and that she was dead serious about it. That's the kind of person she was.

JazzWax tracks:Astrud Gilberto with Stanley Turrentine is available at iTunes or here. Don Sebesky's Giant Box is available here. Grover Washington Jr.'s Inner City Blues and Mister Magic are available at iTunes. George Benson's White Rabbit is available here and Nina Simone's Baltimore is available here. Creed Taylor's web site is CTIJazz.com.

April 29, 2009

The rise of stereo fidelity in the late 1960s and introduction of affordable stereo equipment in the early 1970s created an enormous market for the stereo LP. Clunky record changer consoles were out and individual components were in. If you bought a decent turntable, a tone-arm cartridge, stereo receiver and pair of speakers, stereo records sounded realistic and exciting. To exceed the hi-fi demands of new audiophiles, producer Creed Taylor set the bar high for artists and production at CTI Records. [Photo of Creed Taylor and Stanley Turrentine by Chuck Stewart]

With concert rock drawing massive crowds in the early 1970s following Woodstock, and Detroit and Philadelphia soul gaining ground in urban markets, Creed realized that jazz had to re-invent itself if the genre was to compete. The hard bop formulas of the late 1950s and 1960s had been exhausted, and record buyers wanted a bigger, wider sound with electronic instruments and plenty of rhythmic intensity.

In part 3 of my conversation with Creed on his CTI years, the legendary producer talks about his production technique, Stanley Turrentine, Hubert Laws, Elvis Presley's studio band, and why Paul McCartney gave Creed Let It Be before it was issued:

JazzWax: When you were in the booth producing albums at CTI, what were you doing exactly?Creed Taylor: I was standing, with my left ear next to this huge speaker. And today I wish I hadn’t been doing that. Rudy [van Gelder] had it cranked up, and I loved the sound because the energy coming into booth from the studio was magic. It was the best way to hear if the music being played was happening—or if there was a problem. There was a lot to listen to and evaluate during those sessions.

JW: Did the practice affect your hearing?CT: Oh, sure. It knocked off some of my hearing. I’m probably 10,000 cycles in the left ear today.

JW: Wow, how close were you?CT: Too close [laughs]. As I'm standing there, my eyes were never closed, and nobody in the booth was permitted to talk. I was listening for every bit of texture.

JW: Do you listen that carefully to music when you put on a recording at home? CT: All the time. Listening to jazz is about depth and dimension. It's not something to throw on as background music. I can’t tolerate people who want to listen to jazz and then once the music goes on they start talking. When that happens I leave.

JW: When you were listening in the booth, what would cause you to think a take wasn't happening? CT: It could be any number of things. A song may not be swinging, or it may lack that emotional feeling. Or the tempo might need to be faster or slower to get an emotional reaction. Or the strings might a have little intonation problem, which occurs mostly in the back row. Or some of the woodwinds might be sharp. All kinds of things are going on, and you have to listen hard for them. But ultimately, it’s the feeling of the music that’s the decision maker. How does the track make me feel.

JW: The number of musicians on CTI recordings suddenly grew in the early 1970s.CT: Not suddenly. Gradually. The thing developed. For example, I wanted the strings to be an important element you listened to—not just padding. Strings had a purpose, whether the jazz critics liked them or not. When things got a little more complex, the strings had to be perfect and in tune.JW: How did you ensure that?CT: I had David Nadien in the first chair. David was the section's de facto straw boss. He knew the politics of strings, which went beyond the musicality. Don [Sebesky] was my quality-control guy in the studio. So was David. He contracted every single string player himself. He knew that there was a great deal of political back-scratching going on with string players. If you weren't careful, you could wind up with a mediocre player. For me, every single string player had to be selected carefully. David did that.

JW: Hubert Laws' Crying Song was one of your earliest CTI albums, recorded in mid-1969. You re-issued it in 1970 as gatefold, with a stunning Pete Turner cover. Why?CT: Once I had officially set up my company in early 1970, I wanted to bring uniformity to the look of our covers, making full use of Pete Turner's color photography. The blue image with the horse grazing the snowy Montana field knocked me out. But the photo's subject, the horse, is on the back.

JW: Why?CT: Because it conveys the loneliness of the title. Also, I wanted CTI covers to be as engaging as possible. Pete's images were beautiful, so rich in color. They begged to fill every square inch of real estate on the covers—front and back. And whether the album was seen from the front or back at stores, people would know immediately it was a CTI release. I also knew that in buyers' homes, CTI albums would have the same effect as coffee table books. People would want to hold them, open them and stare at the images. The horse on the back made you turn the album over and over.

JW: Why did you record part of Crying Song in Memphis?CT: I wanted to use the house rhythm section at American Recording Studios. It was a soulful section that had backed Elvis Presley, as odd as that might seem. Elvis had a real soulful thing going.

JW: How did you get them for a jazz date?CT: I knew them already. I just called the studio and asked if I could use the house band. I knew it was going to work because I liked how the band sounded behind Elvis and many other r&b hits. I knew what we were walking into. Then Stanley Turrentine couldn’t make it.

JW: Stanley Turrentine? You mean Hubert Laws.CT: No, it was supposed to be Stanley Turrentine’s date. On the day we were to record in Memphis, I got a call at 10 am in my hotel. The session was to start at 1 p.m. It was Stanley, saying his lawyers wouldn't let him come down to Memphis because his contract hadn’t been signed yet. [Photo of Stanley Turrentine by Francis Wolff]

JW: Did you flip out—I mean as much as Creed Taylor flips out?CT: [Laughs] I don’t know. Stuff happens all the time. As the cliché goes, you roll with the punches.

JW: So what did you do?CT: I called Hubert in New York and asked if he’d like to come down. I told him that Stanley couldn’t make it and that I had Elvis' rhythm section ready to go.

JW: What happened?CT: Hubert [pictured] arrived the next day and we went for a walk along the Mississippi River before the session, stopping for some Memphis barbeque. Then we went back into the studio and recorded with these guys, without music. The sound they created brought Southern soul together with jazz.

JW: Who picked the material?CT: I picked most of the songs. A couple came from the house band there.

JW: Part of the album was recorded at Rudy van Gelder's studio in New Jersey, yes?CT: Yes, we came back up and recorded more at Rudy’s. We didn’t finish everything down there, and I thought we might need some arranging aspects, particularly on Let It Be.

JW: Why?CT: Because of the nature of the song. And also, there was a sound I wanted that I could only get at Rudy's.

JW: But while the song Let It Be was recorded in January 1969, it wasn't released as a single until March 1970, followed by the album in May. How did you get a hold of the song in mid-1969?CT: CTI and George Martin shared the same U.S. attorney at the time. I had given the attorney a copy of Wes Montgomery’s A Day in the Life in 1967 and he took it back to Paul McCartney. The Beatles flipped out about it. They liked it so much that Paul in 1969 sent me a run through tape of what he had done on Let It Be.

JW: Just like that?CT: Yes, just like that—with the understanding that I could record the song with any jazz artist I wished.

JW: So you heard the original demo, and CTI was the first to record it commercially?CT: Yes, what Paul sent was a rough voice line with him playing piano. I‘d heard the song many times growing up in Virginia. It wasn’t called Let It Be, of course. It was a Presbyterian hymn that was very close. We came back to Rudy’s so I could use Hubert on the alto flute and get the sound I had in my head. The alto flute was the perfect register for that kind of soulful, Southern church sound.

JW: How was Hubert on the date? CT: Great. Hubert is unshakable. He's creatively cooperative and has the highest level of musicianship. It didn't matter what I threw at him. He made it all sound great.

JazzWax tracks: Hubert Laws' Crying Song is out of print. You'll find copies of the original LP and CD releases at eBay. For more information about CTI, visit Creed Taylor's site, CTIJazz.comor Doug Payne's fabulous CTI tribute site here, which features a complete label discography and images of Pete Turner's covers.

April 28, 2009

Throughout his six-decade career, Creed Taylor's oversized signature has appeared on the backs of LPs that he has produced. At ABC Paramount, Impulse and Verve, Creed's John Hancock was a personal stamp of approval and a guarantee of the album's contents. Record companies liked the signature because it added a human touch and had cachet. It also sent a message to the record buyer—that a faceless company didn't produce the album, a master craftsman named Creed Taylor did. [Photo by Chuck Stewart]

So by the time Creed moved to Verve in 1961, his name had become an established brand. After Getz/Gilberto and Bill Evans' Conversations with Myself won Grammys, the Creed Taylor signature also stood for hit-maker. Offered an opportunity to join A&M Records in 1966, Creed viewed the job as a chance to further leverage his vision and name. His A&M contract called for the creation of CTI Records, placing him in charge of a boutique jazz label within the larger corporate entity. So when Creed left A&M records in 1969, he took CTI Records with him.

In Part 2 of my conversation with Creed about CTI Records, the legendary producer talks about his vision for the label, the CTI sound, Freddie Hubbard's Red Clay, the purpose of Kudu Records, Antonio Carlos Jobim's Stone Flower and Deodato's Prelude:

JazzWax: From the start, was CTI Records aimed at young adults?Creed Taylor: Not specifically. The albums were for sophisticated jazz listeners of all ages who were tired of the same old formulas being used by the well known jazz labels.

JW: What was CTI's formula?CT: There was no formula. I simply wanted to create a structured musical environment in which highly creative artists like Freddie Hubbard could have the freedom to invent and improvise. CTI was always about "what if" and "let’s try it."

JW: Before you left A&M, did you write out your vision for CTI?CT: No. I knew exactly what I was going to do. I didn’t have to write it down [laughs].

JW: Did you have a sense of what you wanted to achieve? CT: Here’s what I did not want to do: I didn’t want to produce jam sessions. I wanted to capture what I felt when I first heard Stan Getz playing his solo on Woody Herman's Early Autumn. That solo always made me melt. Or when I first heard Jackie [Cain] and Roy [Kral] singing with Charlie Ventura in the late 1940s. I knew immediately when I heard them that I was a Jackie
and Roy fan—and that I wasn't a fan of Charlie Ventura [laughs]. What I was responding to back then was great sounding music. I wanted to do the same at CTI, only do so on a much bigger scale. Over time I think we change
intellectually but not emotionally. What pleases us always pleases us. I simply had a sound in mind that I wanted to capture.

JW: What was this sound? CT: There was a kind of triplex consideration. CTI was going to deliver music that was confident and smart, like Stan Getz. It was going to be beautifully orchestrated, like Gil Evans' arrangements for Claude Thornhill's band. And finally I had a concept for a sound. Whether that sound was going to come through the arranger or the soloist would depend on the album. Eventually, Don Sebesky [pictured] captured that sound, and he became CTI's dominant arranger.

JW: Yet the first CTI albums you recorded in 1969 when you left A&M weren't jazz LPs, were they?CT: That's right. The first CTI date was an album with folk singer Kathy McCord.

JW: Why her?CT: Because I was a Chris Connor fan. I thought Kathy had a nice smokey sound. I liked her voice. One of the next albums I produced was by a group called Flow, which featured guitarist Don Felder, who soon afterward joined the Eagles. I liked Don's sound.

JW: CTI's folk-rock phase was brief. In 1970 you produced Freddie Hubbard's classic Red Clay, which kicked off jazz-fusion. CT: Freddie was into a different scene than Miles Davis at that time. Miles for the most part in the late 1960s was trying to thumb his nose at the phony rock idiom. What Freddie and Herbie Hancock were doing was real enthusiastic, improvised jazz with no sociological or political motives or overtones.

JW: But let me ask you—Red Clay has a lot of extended solo work and wide-open playing. Wasn't this exactly what you were opposed to?CT:Red Clay was different. It was electrifying all the way through. It had an explosive quality. So if it took an extra 5 or 10 minutes for more explosions, I was all for it. Red Clay captured some very emotional music. As a producer, if something’s happening, you don’t cut it off and say to the musicians, "Whoa folks, no one’s going to understand what you’re playing." As a producer, I always prefer to go with the flow and feeling. That was one of those kinds of dates.

JW: Did you and Hubbard discuss Red Clay before the session?CT: No. That’s what jazz is all about. It’s a surprise. I had never heard Red Clay before. But I had heard Freddie Hubbard throughout the 1960s and loved what he had been doing. Freddie was on Oliver Nelson's Blues and the Abstract Truth, which I had produced in 1961 after founding Impulse Records.

JW: Were you concerned that Red Clay didn't have a memorable hook?CT:Red Clay had a large hook. If it took 18 minutes to show what that hook was all about, so be it [laughs]. The day of the 45-rpm single was over by this point. There were new rules. Great music required room to stretch. Freddie needed the space to do all of the improvising he wanted. He was absolutely free to do as he pleased.

JW: It seems your formula at CTI was to have fixed orchestral parameters in place but then allow artists enormous flexibility to move around in the zone. CT: Great music is about flexibility. Music's latitude is greater than anyone can imagine so you have to be prepared for it. You have to allow the art to come up to the top.

JW: On Antonio Carlos Jobim's Stone Flower in 1970, what were you listening for? Or did you just let Jobim do what he wanted?CT: I just let him do his thing. Strings were added later.

JW: Later? Why?CT: When you've got a sensitive, subtle thing like Jobim and the bossa nova idiom, there’s a lot of rhythmic detail that has to be heard by the producer while people are playing and recording. A large string section is a foreign element to handle at the same time.

JW: Jobim knew the strings would come later?CT: Yes, that was the pattern.

JW: In 1971 you created Kudu Records, a CTI subsidiary. Why?CT: To create a record line for play on black radio. I wanted to produce a completely different type of music for a specific audience.

JW: Wasn't CTI designed to do that?CT: It was. But I wanted a label that specifically featured music that was soulful and emotionally interesting, and not necessarily dominated by improvisation. Kudu was sort of an instrumental r&b label. The rhythmic content was the driving sound. For instance, [saxophonist] Stanley Turrentine could have been a Kudu artist, but he was more stylized and sophisticated, so he fit better at CTI. If you took James Brown's backup group without James Brown, you'd have a Kudu recording. Kudu focused on repeated riffs and rhythmic sounds.

JW: What was the business strategy?CT: To introduce Kudu on late-night radio. If the music connected with listeners, I knew that the late-night deejay would tell the drive-time guy in the morning that he was getting a strong reaction from his audience. The late night guy would urge the morning guy to use it. Those were two different audiences in the same market. That's how word of mouth would start when radio mattered. Radio guys at the time knew that Kudu stood for a specific sound. It was jazz, soul and r&b all wrapped up in one package.

JW: What does "Kudu" mean?CT: It’s a species of antelope. I just happened to come across the word. It sounded to me like "voodoo," which has a certain energy to it. I also liked the colors of the Jamaican flag, which I used for the Kudu label. The colors had an earthy, festive groove.

JW: Deodato's Prelude, released in 1973, was CTI's first huge hit. CT:Prelude hit No. 3 on Billboard's album chart, and Also Sprach Zarathustra, the single from the album, reached No. 3 on the Billboard pop chart that year. Sales skyrocketed, and we were on our way with CTI.

JW: How did the concept for the song come about?CT: In 1968, when the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey came out. I saw it and was transfixed by the scene toward the end, where the character eating at a table knocks the wine glass onto the floor. That scene was so bizarre. I heard the movie's theme song and realized it hadn’t been done except as a classical piece.

JW: What happened next?CT: I asked [Eumir] Deodato if he could do something with the 2001 theme. Deodato had arranged albums for me at A&M. The result was this intense samba, quasi-bossa rhythm. It wasn’t so much the arrangement but the energy he put into the rhythm track to get the basic theme down that gave it the impetus or appeal after the melody was put on top. The build was terrific.

JW: Did you ever feel Deodato's 2001 was too long?CT: No. Never. Because it had a life of its own.

JW: Is that a criterion for you as a producer? if a studio performance has a life of its own, leave it alone?CT: I would think so, yeah [laughs].

JW: How does that differ from a 10-minute drum solo? Doesn't that have a life of its own?CT: Uhhh, whose drum solo? And on what song? [laughs]. It all depends.

Tomorrow, Creed talks about his left ear, the growing size of CTI orchestras, the recording of Hubert Laws' Crying Song with Elvis Presley's backup group, and how Creed wound up with Paul McCartney's rundown of Let It Be before the Beatles song was released.

April 27, 2009

In my previous series of conversations with Creed Taylor (Parts 1-14), the legendary jazz record producer spoke candidly about his work in the 1950s and 1960s at Bethlehem, ABC Paramount, Impulse, Verve and A&M. At each label, Creed transformed jazz and jazz LP packaging. He also made contemporary stars of jazz artists ranging from Stan Getz to Wes Montgomery. But despite his many award-winning accomplishments at these labels, Creed's most ambitious years were yet to come. [Photo by Chuck Stewart]

In 1969, three years after joining A&M Records, Creed worked out a deal with the label that freed him from his contract and allowed him to start his own company with his already established CTI label. Over the next nine years, Creed would blaze a completely new jazz trail and set new standards for album production and packaging.

But this CTI revolution was not without controversy. Some jazz fans questioned whether Creed had gone too far, producing great-looking LP jackets that held bland jazz versions of pop and soul hits. Others staunchly loved the jazz sound Creed created using a working studio band of top musicians and higher standards of fidelity.

Eventually, CTI imploded, a victim of overexpansion, flawed distribution decisions and an economic downturn that forced the company into bankruptcy. But between 1969 and 1978, Creed paved the way for what's now known as jazz-soul, revolutionized LP packaging with photographer Pete Turner, and created a more sophisticated and upscale image for jazz and jazz artists. Creed also produced significant jazz albums for new and established artists using massive orchestras at a time when jazz budgets were being slashed at major labels.

In Part 1 of my five-part interview series with Creed on his CTI years, the producer reflects on his last days at A&M Records, his vision for a stand-alone CTI label, and the factors that led to his break with A&M:

JazzWax: Before we talk about your CTI years, I hear you've assembled a CTI band for an eight-week concert tour this summer, yes?Creed Taylor: Yes, I'm producing a series of performances by the CTI All Stars. We're going to play about eight European and Asian jazz festivals. The group is made up of Randy Brecker, Hubert Laws, [saxophonist] Bill Evans, Russell Malone, Niels Lan Doky, Mark Egan, Jeff Tain Watts, Airto, Flora Purim and Jamie Cullum. Our first concert is at the Montreux Jazz Festival on July 7th.

JW: Are you excited?CT: Oh sure. CTI did a lot of festivals back in the 1970s, at the Hollywood Bowl and other places. Everyone in those concert bands was a CTI recording artist, and whoever had the next album coming out was the primary soloist.

JW: Are the CTI All Stars going to perform in the U.S.?CT: If we make enough noise in Europe, Japan and Korea, we probably will. We went abroad because there are more significant jazz festivals there. The festival culture and audiences are different. It's very exciting. All of my creative juices are flowing.

JW: In 1967, two years before you left A&M Records, you produced Wave with Antonio Carlos Jobim, which foreshadowed the CTI look and sound.CT: Yes, Wave actually was one of my first CTI recordings when CTI was a subsidiary of A&M. I had heard parts of the song a year earlier, in Rio de Janeiro.

JW: Did Jobim play it for you there?CT: Yes. I had been invited down to Rio by the government. I was to be the guest of honor at a luncheon. Brazil grew a lot of coffee but it didn't start exporting it until after the Verve bossa nova records I produced with Stan Getz took off. Actually, Brazil had invited down a large number of American stars in different cultural and business areas. On the plane down was Natalie Wood, Robert Wagner, Quincy Jones, Sammy Cahn, and Kim Hunter, one of my favorite Hitchcock actresses—blond, really quiet and pretty. I had a long talk with her on the flight. Everyone was going to the same event. [Photo of Quincy Jones and Creed Taylor by Chuck Stewart]

JW: Sounds like there was more than coffee at stake.CT: There was. With the bossa nova craze in full throttle, Brazil saw a commercial and cultural opportunity to overcome its Carmen Miranda image. MGM back in the 1940s and early 1950s had put bananas on Miranda's hat, and rather than focus on music as a vital part of Brazilian culture, Miranda's image and Brazil by extension became a punch line.

JW: So there was a music component to the trip, too, yes?CT: Yes. After The Girl from Ipanema hit, Brazil wanted to remind everyone that the samba and bossa nova were from Brazil, not any other Latin American country. I think the government hoped that those who came down would carry that message back.

JW: You already knew Jobim, of course, from your earlier recordings.CT: Yes, sure. We first met in New York in the very early 1960s. When I went by to see him in Rio in 1966, he played an incomplete version of Wave for me on the piano. I loved it. I liked Jobim very much. He was full of enthusiasm, and an early proponent of the whole green thing we see today. Our culture should have been more receptive to Jobim’s feelings about the forest and flowers and the ocean. When I heard the song and its name, I thought to myself, "There he goes again, like a kid, a composer, animated like a wave." We agreed when the song was finished that we'd record it together.

JW: When you joined A&M in 1966, setting up CTI was part of your original deal, yes? CT: That's right.

JW: When did you decide to leave?CT: In late 1968. Herb Alpert was a really nice guy. He was a stylistic trumpet player, and his Tijuana Brass made A&M a huge success. But he also liked jazz a little too much, perhaps. He made suggestions to me about arrangements. It was a subtle thing, and I saw conflict in artistic direction looming.

JW: How so?CT: If you get too connected with another person in your own area of artistic achievement, you risk falling for that person's suggestions. One day I woke up and it hit me. I realized that I had to leave A&M. I thought I should be listening carefully to other aesthetics.

JW: Herb loved jazz?CT: Herb loved Paul Desmond, Wes Montgomery [pictured] and other artists that I was producing. But I could sense through his suggestions that he had a different creative vision for them. And I started to feel myself becoming obligated to incorporate his suggestions. His recommendations were taking my sensibilities in the wrong direction. I knew I had to set up a record company on my own to accomplish what I had in mind.

JW: How was the parting?CT: Completely amicable.

JW: Did you need a new office?CT: I already had my own office separate from A&M's offices, and I didn't change my location at Rockefeller Center. Early on, the deal was that A&M would handle the distribution and everything else. After an album package was complete, I would just send it over to them, and they took it from there. I wasn't involved in the marketing in the beginning, but I did a lot of radio promotion.

JW: Were you scared going out on your own?CT: No.

JW: Why not?CT: No one was doing what I was doing, so I didn't have any real competition to worry about. And A&M was handling all the back-end work.

JW: In the late 1960s, what did you sense was changing in the music industry and jazz marketplace? What opportunity did you see?CT: I saw that there was room for jazz that didn't completely ignore other successful types of music of the time that had merit. I liked what Blue Note Records had been doing in this space earlier in the 1960s. Lee Morgan's Sidewinder, for example, made a lot of noise. So did Jimmy Smith's Back at the Chicken Shack. Blue Note had placed one foot in r&b and one foot in improvised contemporary jazz.

JW: Did you like what Blue Note was doing? CT: Yes, I did. However, it wasn't the direction in which I was interested in going. I thought the label was restricting its reach by having long improvised solos on albums. I had similar ideas about mixing jazz, soul and r&b—but without the imposition of elongated passages. These would be where the bass had maybe two choruses and drums would then do a trade. It’s hard to verbalize what I knew and what I wanted to do that no one else was doing.

JW: But if you were summing it up?CT: Look, I felt there were great music themes out there that weren't being packaged in a way that large audiences would connect with them.

JW: At CTI, you clearly were shooting for sophistication. How did you know that the market was ready for what you had to offer?CT: My many years in the record business had resulted in a close relationship with the independent distributors as a group. They were almost like a fraternity. As long as you didn't cross into their territory, you were part of this club. I got to know them, and we had a direct line of communication.

JW: What were they telling you about the marketplace?CT: I sensed I could record Freddie Hubbard on Red Clay, for example, and make a really attractive package out of it. Back then, these guys were businessmen but they also were interested in music. Even though A&M was handling the distribution at first, I knew the distribution guys well and could tell them what I had planned and who was going to appear on an album. Then I would say, "By the way, I’m going into the studio with Freddie [Hubbard] or Stanley [Turrentine] and the results are going to be very interesting." These guys would give me a sense of how they thought my concepts would sell or what I had to do to improve sales.

JW: What did you learn about consumers?CT: Through the distributors I discovered that taste levels among buyers were shifting. With the rise of FM stereo radio in the late 1960s, the album began to gain on the single 45-rpm. FM stations needed to fill more time, since they had less ads at first. As albums became more popular, LP covers became more important. Younger people began to respond more to highly artistic, engaging covers.

JW: But covers were becoming more than just a place to put an artist's picture, yes?CT: Absolutely. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, youheld covers, you left them out, face up or standing against speakers. They were meant to be seen. They were a personal statement. My goal with [photographer] Pete Turner was to create a mood for the covers. I wanted the images to symbolize the feeling and energy of the music inside.

JW: Yet your CTI covers by Pete were never literal images of the album titles.CT: That's right. Jazz is about giving listeners space to reach their own conclusions. CTI cover art was always strong but subliminal in its depictions.

JW: Record covers were always important. When did they start to play an even bigger role, especially with the type of photography you were using and the wet, glossy surfaces?CT: Right after I left A&M. I knew the guy managing thedistributor that sold directly to Korvettes in New York. The flagship store was on 5th Ave. [pictured]. Today, the store's name doesn't mean much to most people, since they went out of business years ago. But back in the 1960s and 1970s, the department store had a huge record department. The stronger the covers, the stronger the sales. Pete Turner's images were so rich and beautiful that I wanted them to take up the entire cover.

JW: What was the reaction?CT: Eventually the distributor told me that customers weren't coming in to ask what’s new in jazz but what’s new on CTI. So our covers played a big role in the popularity of the albums. Or at last getting people to buy them for the first time. Distributors helped me realize that we headed in the right direciton.

JW: But there was plenty of competition for the consumer's dollar.CT: Yes but not that much in my jazz category. By 1970, rock had overwhelmed most other genres. Many other jazz albums from this period looked shabby and sounded slapped together. My strategy was to invest heavily on the talent, sound quality and look of the records. By 1974, Billboard named CTI the label of the year, and we were the No. 1 jazz label in the world.

April 26, 2009

Let's Go Sunning. Last week, reader John Cooper sent me an e-mail asking if I knew who the woman was singing on a YouTube clip called Let's Go Sunning. Usually I have a name for him, but this time I was stumped, and apparently so are dozens of people on the web who have been asking the same question. It seems the oddball song popped up in a video game called Fallout 3. The problem is that the song with the cheery mid-1950s arrangement and jingle-y vocal doesn't appear in any band or singer discography.

I love a mystery, so I did a little online research. A quick check at BMI told me that the song's writer was Jack Shaindlin, a composer of movie music who conducted the Carnegie Pops Orchestra in the late 1940s and whose soundtrack credits included Mickey One. Shaindlin died in 1978, so I reached out to the next-best source—his widow. We had a wonderful chat:

"Jack [pictured] wrote the song for a nudist film in the mid-1950s. It was a one-time thing. Bob McBride, Jack's orchestrator, arranged it. The film was ridiculous, and the man who produced it, Walter Bibo, was revolting. He found this pathetic young girl to sing Jack's song. She had hoped to make it big in the music business. I can't remember her name. She was a nobody, and she was so lost. Jack would tell me how hard a time they had trying to get her to sing it right. I'm not sure why Jack bothered to write a song for that film. I think he was intrigued by it. He certainly didn't need the work."

So Let's Go Sunning was the theme song of an early sexploitation film. But what was the film's title? There was no entry for the song at the Internet Movie Database. So I checked Variety's Film Reviews 1954-1958. Only a snippet of the page was available online, displaying just the song's name and the film's cinematographer, Boris Kaufman.

A quick check of Kaufman's bio told me that in 1954, a year before he won an Oscar for On the Waterfront, Kaufman had been the lensman on a 70-minute film called Garden of Eden. Here's the film's synopsis: "War widow and pre-teen daughter leave home of tyrannical father-in-law
in Florida, get lost on a detour, and find shelter at a nudist colony." As teens are fond of saying today, "Riiight."

A full accounting of Garden of Eden and most of its naked participants can be found in The Good, The Bad and the Dolce Vita by Mickey Knox, who co-starred in the film. According to Knox, producer Bibo lacked a publicity budget, so Bibo released the controversial film in a Southern state, where he could expect an instant ban. And that's exactly what happened. Based on further research, Bibo brought suit on First Amendment grounds, and the case eventually led to a 1956 U.S. Supreme Court decision (Excelsior Pictures Corp. v. Regents of University of New York State). The high court's majority ruled that the film was not obscene or indecent, and that nudity was not itself obscene.

Garden of Eden ultimately was distributed, but all of the legal wrangling didn't do much for its image or visibility. Bibo soon disappeared, and according to the IMDB, he never produced another film (at least under his own name). Based on Mrs. Shaindlin's comments about the female singer, one can only assume she was an aspiring actress or singer Bibo had "vowed" to make a star. It's all very Ed Wood.

"Thank you very much for this review. I deeply appreciate the time and commitment you made to get inside my music and to write so evocatively about it."

Denny also mentioned that on Friday, May 1st, from 8 to 9 p.m. (EDT), Sirius-XM satellite radio on XM-70 "Real Jazz" is broadcasting one of his sets from a March appearance at New York's Dizzy's Club Coca Cola. Joining Denny were bassist Buster Williams and drummer Matt Wilson. At the Sirius XM website, it looks like you can click for a three-day free online trial here.

Duke Ellington. This Wednesday (April 29), New York's WKCR-FM will present its annual "Duke Ellington Birthday Broadcast." The station will be spinning Duke around the clock. You can hear the show anywhere in the world on your computer by going here.

Tony Bennett. After my post on Tony Bennett last Sunday, several readers sent along thoughts and other small-group jazz recommendations:

From Jan Stevens, host of the Bill Evans Web Pages, in praise of Evan's recordings with Bennett:

"I found this quote by Tony in an interview he did with Detroit Free Press that was reprinted at Popmatters.com on April 21st..."

Q: Who are your favorite jazz musicians with whom you performed?A: I loved Count Basie, but the best I’ve ever performed with was Bill Evans. I never heard anyone who matched him. He was so artistic and creative. What he did as a pianist was just at the highest level of musicianship. It was astounding.

From Michael Bloom:

"My all-time fave is the Bennett Does Jazz" session he recorded for
Columbia with Stan Getz, Herbie Hancock, Elvin Jones and Ron Carter. There were four tracks. Out of this World was my favorite. I
think they were reissued recently somewhere."

[Editor's note: The tracks, recorded in 1964, were Just Friends, Have You Met Miss Jones?, Clear Out of This World and Danny Boy. Bennett recorded Day Dream with the same group and Bob Brookmeyer a day later.]

From Sean Cannon:

"Regarding the Bennett jazz selections: I enjoy The Beat of My Heart very much, particularly the title song and Let There Be Love. However, the best Bennett jazz sides have never seen the light of day in the CD era. I'm talking about When Lights Are Low with the Ralph Sharon Trio, How My Heart Sings with a big band featuring Al Cohn, and Hometown, My Town, with Ralph Burns Orchestra (what a trombone solo on SkyScraper Blues!). For the life of me, I can't figure out why those recordings have never been reissued."

Horace Silver. Jazz musician, writer and educator Bill Kirchner sent along a lovely note following my post on Horace Silver's Horace-Scope (1960). He also drew my attention to his fabulous Silver "Dozens" choices for Jazz.com.

Leggio was perhaps best known for his recordings with several major orchestras, including Maynard Ferguson's tiger bands of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Cornell recorded on and off over the years, but his biggest date was surely Stanley Turrentine's Sugar. For more on Cornell, Arnaldo DeSouteiro posted a wonderful tribute at Jazz Station.

CD discovery of the week: Cy Touff is a largely forgotten jazz legend. The bass trumpeter was prominent in the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s, especially on a series of West Coast jazz albums. In 1981, he produced a recording session in Chicago that wasn't released for many years due to a paperwork snafu. The album, Tickle Toe, finally was issued by Delmark Records last year.

Along with Touff on this date were Sandy Mosse on tenor sax, John Campbell on piano, Kelly Sill on bass and Jerry Coleman on drums. It's a fabulous old-school CD with relaxed Lester Young-style playing by Mosse and punchy duet exchanges by Touff.

Chicago-born Touff started playing trombone in an army band with Conte Candoli and Red Mitchell in the mid-1940s. Then he studied with Lennie Tristano and worked with Bill Russo, Charlie Ventura, Ray McKinley and Boyd Raeburn. He took up the bass trumpet in the late 1940s and toured and recorded with Woody Herman in the early 1950s. Recordings followed with smaller groups, including the Nat Pierce and Dick Collins' nonet. Touff led a series of West Coast jazz groups throughout the 1950s and beyond. Probably my favorite Touff dates were recordings with Richie Kamuca in 1955, with arrangements by Johnny Mandel and Ernie Wilkins. Touff died in 2003.

Touff's playing on this 1981 album is rich and spare, with an emphasis on harmony and collaboration with Mosse, who was popular on the Chicago and European jazz scenes (Mosse died in 1983). Touff's small-group specialty was weaving tightly in and out of another musician's lines. Particularly superb here is Alone Together,Secret Love and a mid-tempoThe Man I Love.

Oddball album cover of the week. Vocalist Bea Abbott recorded just one album, Out of Nowhere, for Westminster Records in late 1957. She was backed by the Hal Otis Quintet, with Otis on violin, Joe Vito on accordion, John Gray on guitar, Lennie Miller on bass and Nicke Addante on drums. Judging by the cover, it looks like Otis fiddled while Bea burned.

April 24, 2009

Up until now, listening to pianist Denny Zeitlin has been for me like wandering around inside a giant acrylic crystal. No transparent surface in there travels in a straight line, so it's easy to slip off the wall and onto your back, unsure if you're looking up or down. For many years I avoided Zeitlin's recordings, either because the commitment needed to find cohesion was too great or because I just assumed that much of what I heard from one album to the next was just variations on the same giant helix. [Pictured: Cecil McBee, Zeitlin and Freddie Waits in 1964]

Then a few months ago, Mosaic Records issued Denny Zeitlin: The Columbia Studio Trio Sessions, which were recorded in the early 1960s. Before giving the three-CD set a listen, I asked a friend about the importance of the recordings, not having ever owned them. "There aren't many jazz albums where you can hear the heart and brain playing duets," he said. Now, after weeks listening to the Mosaic set upward of two dozen times, I'm pleased to say that this work is as magnificent as it is fascinating.

For those unfamiliar with Zeitlin's early 1960s work, be aware that it doesn't fit neatly in any one category. There are influences here and there, but ultimately these influences are more like sprinkles than streaks. If I were constructing an algebraic formula to give you a sense of the style, it probably would go something like this: (Bill Evans x George Russell + Don Friedman) x Andrew Hill. But even this silly equation is unfair, for Zeitlin in the early 1960s truly created his own genre, which is blazingly apparent on this Mosaic set.

What I love most about these CDs is that each disc is like being taken on a different journey through a dense, magical forest. Rather than tug away from Zeitlin's hand or have a tantrum over structure, it's far more fun to get lost with him, emerging in glades or by streams or at heights where there's a breathtaking view. There's a rational enthusiasm and artistic risk-taking here that's intoxicating.

Zeitlin began medical school at Johns Hopkins in 1960. Already a strong pianist, he played locally with saxophonist Gary Bartz, whose father owned a Baltimore jazz club. Fortunately for Zeitlin, his dorm had a 7-foot Steinway grand, enabling him to practice in between studies.

In 1963, Zeitlin accepted a 10-week psychiatry fellowship at New York's Columbia University. Zeitlin quickly befriended composer George Russell, a relationship that changed his musical outlook, and saxophonist Paul Winter, who introduced him to Columbia Records' producer John Hammond. After hearing Zeitlin play, Hammond signed him to a record deal, teaming Zeitlin with Jeremy Steig on Flute Fever.

In February 1964, Zeitlin recorded Cathexis, his first leadership date, with Cecil McBee on bass and Freddie Waits on drums. The word cathexis is from the Greek and means a concentration of emotional energy on a person, object or idea, which perfectly defines Zeitlin's approach. The album is comprised of a restless quilting of originals and standards that constantly surge and seduce. So Soon, Nica's Dream and 'Round Midnight, for example, bristle with rush-hour chord densities and scrambling melodies that capture the songs' frames and spirit rather than an exact likeness.

Unlike many modal artists of the period who relied on pounding percussive bass-clef attacks, Zeitlin prefers to hang out high in the treble zone. His fidgety, headlong technique holds you fast. The high point on this first disc is Blue Phoenix, Parts 1, 2 and 3. The chord structures and moods created are wonderful.

Writes Zeitlin in his liner notes for the new Mosaic box:

"I remember bringing the finished LP over to Bill Evans' apartment for his critique. I felt emboldened to call him, since he had mentioned my 'great' playing on Flute Fever in a Down Beat Blindfold Test. He loved the trio album, and encouraged me to 'keep doing my own thing.' In this early phase of my recording career, the encouragement of people like Billy Taylor, George Russell and Bill Evans was tremendously inspiring."

But after Cathexis was released, touring was out, since Zeitlin had to move to the West Coast for his internship at San Francisco General Hospital. Soon after relocating, he began gigging with bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Jerry Granelli. The trio recorded Carnival for Columbia in October 1964 in Los Angeles. The album has a slightly more sensitive sound than Cathexis, with Zeitlin surging and reflecting. Standards like The Boy Next Door and All the Things You Are become Zeitlinized, as they're taken apart and reassembled with almost cinematic drama.

Zeitgeist was the third studio album. Part of the date was recorded in April 1966 with the same musicians from Carnival. The balance was recorded almost a year later, with Joe Halpin on bass and Oliver Johnson on drums. The studio recording was interrupted by a series of gigs and a live album (Shining Hour) as well as Zeitlin's ever-demanding and ongoing medical residency.

Zeitgeist is perhaps the most Evansian of the three Columbia albums. You can hear the influence of Bill Evans most distinctly on Put Your Little Right Foot Out and Here's that Rainy Day. But since Zeitlin was first to record the latter song in 1967 (Evans took it on as a solo piece in 1968), you wonder how much of an influence Zeitlin had on Evans at this point. Also interesting is Zeitlin's beard, a look Evans would assume years later.

There are revelations on these Columbia dates. During my intensive listening sessions, it dawned on me that the pianist was less interested in a song's melody and much more focused on exposing its personality. This really is quite extraordinary. Most pianists of the period, including Evans, took a standard and deconstructed the melody, drawing on harmonies, swing and chord changes to express improvisation. Or like Andrew Hill, they chose to make a fabulously percussive and deeply political statement.

Zeitlin, by contrast, treats each song like a patient—probing and evaluating the traits that make the composition tick. Eventually he fully exposes its natural behavior. On these Columbia sessions, Zeitlin either consciously or unconsciously put songs on the couch. What you hear are a song's disorders, pleasure principals and rage. Through Zeitlin, we learn that a song's id is a beautiful thing.

JazzWax tracks: Denny Zeitlin: The Columbia Studio Trio Sessions is a three-disc set available as part of the Mosaic Select series. You'll find it here. The set is extraordinary both for Zeitlin's musicianship and technique, and for the powerful influence he had on so many pianists who followed in the 1960s and 1970s.

April 23, 2009

From time to time I post on great downloads that likely have escaped your radar. I do this because iTunes and Amazon can't seem to find a proper way to let consumers know about their latest digital releases. Or in other cases, great downloads are sitting around hidden under artists' names. Still others are clumsily misfiled by iTunes, dooming them to limbo.

(If you want to see the other seven volumes in this ongoing series, simply type "Hidden Jazz Downloads" into the search engine in the upper right-hand corner.)

After roaming iTunes and Amazon recently, I came across five downloads that I think you'll enjoy:

Freddie Hubbard: The Artistry of Freddie Hubbard — Out of print for some time, this 1962 Impulse release was just reissued as part of Verve Music Group's "Originals" series. The date features Hubbard on trumpet, Curtis Fuller on trombone, John Gilmore on tenor sax, Tommy Flanagan on piano, Art Davis on bass and Louis Hayes on drums. This was Hubbard's first date as a leader for Impulse, having played as a sideman for the label in 1961 on Curtis Fuller's Soul Trombone, John Coltrane's Africa Brass and Oliver Nelson's Blues and the Abstract Truth. This album is interesting in that you hear Hubbard beginning to ditch his hard bop, Blue Note sound for a more fiery style that he'd continue to develop throughout the decade.

Benny Goodman: Yale University Archives (Vol. 3) — Recorded privately by Goodman during a performance tour in Brussels in 1958, this album may be gathering a bit of moss. At iTunes, when you type "Benny Goodman + Yale" into the search engine, you only see four albums. You have to click "see all" in the upper right-hand corner of the iTunes screen to view the entire series. Vol. 3 swings and features Jimmy Rushing and Ethel Ennis on vocals as well as legends Zoot Sims, Billy Bauer and Roland Hanna. Best of all, you'll hear a splendid arrangement of I'm Coming Virginia (which features Rushing and Sims). But the show-stopper for me is Goodman's nonet playing Soon, with an Early Autumn-like arrangement by Bobby Gutesha.Sarah Vaughan: Feelin' Good — I love Vaughan's husky interpretations of 1970s pop songs. This album for Mainstream from 1972 features warm arrangements by Peter Matz, Michel Legrand, Jack Elliott and Allyn Ferguson. Dig Just a Little Lovin' made famous by Dusty Springfield, or Rainy Days and Mondays, the Carpenters' hit. Heck, even Alone Again (Naturally) sounds great here under Sassy's care. This one wasn't issued on CD, and the LP is pricey.

Terry Gibbs: Swing Is Here—No matter the album, Gibbs always swings on vibes, often with great sidemen aboard. The band on this 1960 recording was particularly hot: Al Porcino, Conte Candoli, Ray Triscari, Stu Williamson and John Audino (trumpets), Bob Enevoldsen, Frank Rosolino, Tom Shepard and Bob Pring (trombones), Joe Maini and Charlie Kennedy (alto saxes), Bill Perkins and Med Flory (tenor sax), Jack Schwartz (baritone sax), Terry Gibbs (vibes), Lou Levy (piano), Buddy Clark (bass) and Mel Lewis (drums). The band bolts for the woods on the first track and never looks back. It was just released as part of Verve's "Originals" series.

Junior Cook: Junior's Cookin' — If you dig Horace Silver's Doin' the Thing, you'll love this album. Cook recorded the date with the exact same Silver lineup, except with Dolo Coker on piano. Half the album was recorded on April 10, 1961. Then Cook and the Horace Silver Quintet went into New York's Village Gate, where Doin' the Thing was recorded in May. The rest of Junior's Cookin' was recorded in December. It's superb all the way through, and Coker does his best to fill in for Silver.

April 22, 2009

I'm a closet Eydie Gorme fan. Not a wall-to-wall collector, just your garden variety lover of her sassy, confident, mid-1960s belting sound. I tend to favor Gorme albums and tracks that unleash the singer's inner wham-bam. And there were many. My favorite album is Don't Go to Strangers for Columbia, on which she sang I Wanna Be Around backed by a scorching big band and Don Costa arrangement.

Gorme came on the scene with husband Steve Lawrence in the mid-1950s, positioned first as an ethnic pop alternative to another set of married entertainers, Jackie Cain and Roy Kral. Unlike Jackie and Roy, Steve and Eydie also recorded as solo artists. But in the early 1960s, Gorme had the misfortune to be ascending just when Barbra Streisand rushed through and swept up all the chips.

That didn't stop Gorme. Instead, she was positioned as a brassier, hipper Streisand. In the mid-1960s, her pipes were just as strong as Streisand's even if her vibrato had more of a chrome-like edge. Frankly, it's a shame the two never sang together.

By now, I'm sure you're checking the URL in your browser to be sure you're at JazzWax. Or you're wondering why I'm going on and on about Eydie Gorme. Two reasons: First, when Gorme was turned loose at the height of her vocal powers, she could kick down the door—and some—just like any great jazz singer. Second, I have a video clip to prove it. Before we turn to the clip, I just want to add that Don't Go to Strangers (1966) has been teamed with Softy as I Leave You (1967) on a CD here.

Sitting down? Here's Gorme in 1966 on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson singing a rousing version of I Wanna Be Around. I warn you, it's impossible to watch this thing once. Dig Gorme get into a swinging groove before singing. And catch her ahead of the beat several times to shove the band forward. And how about that moment where she enters early on the buildup, sustains the note and launches her voice on the crescendo, only to let it break to make the lyric's point. Wow, just beautiful...

April 21, 2009

Everyone has a favorite Horace Silver album. Mine is Horace- Scope. Recorded in July 1960, the album has a hair-raising lineup of tracks and a superb mix of Silver's grumbling bass lines, high-energy melodies and snap-crisp horns. Don't get me wrong, I love Song for My Father, Six Pieces of Silver and Blowin' the Blues Away. All three are vivid examples of Silver's hard-bop genius and rhythmic brilliance. But for me, Horace-Scope has a little something extra—a passing gear, if you will. [Photo by Francis Wolff]

Horace-Scope didn't come easy. The date was recorded over two days (July 8th and 9th), and all of the tracks required double-digit takes. And no wonder. The melodies and executions are so tightly choreographed that it's remarkable that perfection was achieved on any of the takes. For instance, upward of 34 takes were required for Yeah and 38 attempts for Me and My Baby. The group had kicked off the session with Me and My Baby but its intricacies proved to be too much, and the song was tabled until the following day.

What makes Horace-Scope so interesting is the firmness of Silver's playing and sound of the group's front-line horns. Trumpeter Blue Mitchell and tenor saxophonist Junior Cook had been with Silver along with bassist Gene Taylor since 1958. The compact feel of the ensemble along with its racehorse energy level is absolutely electrifying. [Photo of Junior Cook by Francis Wolff]

Silver co-founded the Jazz Messengers with Art Blakey in 1954. Blakey had used the Jazz Messengers name for several recordings years earlier, and Silver and Blakey knew each other well by 1954. The pair first recorded together in 1952, on a Coleman Hawkins date for Spotlite Records and again in 1952, when Blakey appeared on the Horace Silver Trio album for Blue Note. When Silver and Blakey formed the Jazz Messengers in 1954, tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley had already been playing with Silver at Minton's Playhouse. Trumpeter Kenny Dorham was recruited.

The Silver-Blakey Jazz Messengers lasted about a year and a half, recording its last date for Columbia in April 1956. By this time, Donald Byrd was in for Dorham, who had departed the group late in 1955. Soon after the Columbia recording, Silver also left to form his own hard-bop quintet.

Silver explained why in Let's Get to the Nitty Gritty, his autobiography (with Phil Pastras):

"I worked and traveled with the Jazz Messengers for about a year and a half before I left the band. I left not because I didn't like the music or because of any personal friction with anyone in the band. I left because of the drug addiction that was prevalent among the band members. Bassist Doug Watkins and I were the only ones that didn't have a drug habit.

"Almost everywhere we played, the vice squad came to check us out for drugs. I was always worried that they would catch one of the guys holding and we'd all get busted. It seemed the word had gone out from police department to police department in all major cities that the Jazz Messengers were drug addicts."

After Silver formed his own group, he recorded Silver's Blue and Six Pieces of Silver in 1956, The Stylings of Silver in 1957, Further Explorations in 1958, and Finger Poppin' and Blowin' the Blues Away in 1959. In between Silver freelanced as a sideman on numerous classic hard-bop dates.

Then came Horace-Scope. Dig the loping groove Silver gets into on Strollin'. Or the funky uptempo Ping Pong beat he launches on Where You At. As on most Silver albums, there's a gem of a ballad here, this time pianist Don Newey's humid Without You. Then Silver hits the gas with Horace-Scope, working his fiery solo methodically into a funk frenzy.

Yeah is a ferocious minor-major cooker and the album's high point. Me and My Baby is a taut gospel-funk blues, while Nica's Dream is taken at a brisker pace than the version recorded in 1956. The tempo and tune explode from the opening first notes. Mitchell's [pictured] and Cook's contributions to this album should not be overlooked or underestimated. They are so tightly in sync that it sounds as if the same person is simultaneously playing both instruments.

In 1960, Silver was at the height of his playing skills, battling Bobby Timmons and the Jazz Messengers for funk dominance. For my money, Horace-Scope is about as exciting as late-period hard bop gets.

JazzWax tracks: Horace-Scope is available as a download at iTunes or on CD here. I also recommend grabbing The Jazz Messengers from 1956 for contrast. The album is a masterpiece in so many ways. It, too, is available at iTunes or on CD here. My suggestion is to buy the CD for $6.99 just to read George Avakian's original liner notes and drummer Kenny Washington's updated notes in 1997. Blakey's drum solo on Hank's Symphony alone is worth the price of admission.

JazzWax clip: For a taste of how good Blue Mitchell and Junior Cook were together in the Horace Silver Quintet, here they are in 1958 on a swing through Holland. Fascinating how close Cook and Hank Mobley sounded, except that Cook was a little brighter in his phrasing and worked higher on the horn's register. And listen carefully to how intricate Silver's arrangement is here...

April 20, 2009

On February 6, 1956, Art Tatum and Buddy De Franco recorded together in Los Angeles with Red Callender on bass and Bill Douglass on drums. The session was for Norman Granz's Verve Records, one of several American Songbook sessions Granz had set up teaming Tatum with jazz greats of the period.

The Tatum-De Franco date is significant for several reasons: To the best of my knowledge, it marked the first time the pianist had recorded with a clarinet in a duo format. It also was the first time that Tatum and Buddy played together. Sadly, the summit would also be the last time these two frantically busy jazz giants would merge. Tatum would die in November.

I've always been extremely fond of this recording. If you're unfamiliar with the album, the eight tracks and three alternates might seem at first like an attempt to reproduce the Benny Goodman-Teddy Wilson sound. Not so. Buddy's clarinet is more brooding and relaxed, determined to reach reverentially into Tatum's zone. Tatum, for his part, isn't interested in laying back or accompanying anyone. He's up, down, around and in back of every line played by Buddy.

The more you listen to the tracks, the more information you hear. These two aren't just playing a clutch of standards. There's a duel going on—but not between egos. Tatum throughout playfully puts the clarinet through a series of wrestling holds. Buddy, for his part, allows himself to be caught on occasion, only to slip free and come back with holds of his own. There's a cat and mouse quality here that never disappoints, no matter how many times you play the album. Yesterday I listened to the session 13 times in a row, and I still haven't tired of it.

Fascinated to know more about the record date, I called Buddy recently, and we spent a lovely half hour chatting:

JazzWax: Do you remember the Art Tatum session?Buddy De Franco: Oh sure. That was quite an experience. From the time I was a young boy, my father had brought home 78-rpm recordings of Tatum. The first time I had heard them, I was amazed. From that point on, I was an Art Tatum fan. I consider him a genius. In the jazz era, Art Tatum and Charlie Parker would be my only two picks on the genius level. All the other good players were highly talented and great and all that. But Bird and Tatum were at the genius level.

JW: Whose idea was the Tatum-De Franco session?BDF: Norman Granz [pictured]. He was doing a series of Tatum sessions with well-known jazz players. When he called me and told me what he wanted to do, it absolutely floored me. I went through a combination of fright, intimidation, thrill, elation—you name it. All those categories of emotion. Tatum was naturally intimidating, because of his facility and his brain and the way it worked.

JW: What impressed you most?BDF: How Art weaved in and out of chord progressions and keys. It was amazing. The other thing about the date was that Art chose keys that were different from the ones the songs were written in originally. That was a tricky thing. On top of that, I had kind of pretty bad cold.

JW: Let me get this straight: You were anxious, Tatum changed the keys on songs he sprang on you at the session, and you were under the weather? BDF: Yes, I was so ill on that date I had to sit down in a chair for practically the entire session.

JW: Did you ever consider postponing? BDF: No. I realized immediately that putting off the date was impossible given Art’s schedule and mine. If f I didn’t do the date then, I’d probably never get do it. The probability of bringing us together again would be slim.

JW: Did you find playing with Tatum distracting?BDF: Yes, absolutely. In fact, that was one of the things I had to guard against and focus on. I had to work harder to avoid being distracted by what Art was doing on the piano. With Art, every two beats in a measure was a different chord progression or fantastic arpeggio. It was incredible to follow him. It was like trying to catch a train [laughs].

JW: How did you block out the amazing things Tatum was doing?BDF: That was a matter of survival. I just had to do it or else. I was stubborn enough not to fail.

JW: Who chose the songs?BDF: Art chose most of them. I chose a couple.

JW: Did you know the songs he chose in advance?BDF: No. It was impromptu.

JW: Who brought in bassist Red Callender and Bill Douglass on drums?BDF: Art had worked before with Red in Los Angeles. I'm not sure about Bill. Norman probably brought him in. He was a popular West Coast session drummer at the time.

JW: Did you and Art make small talk at the start of the session?BDF: We had a brief chat. We both knew that we had to get down to business immediately.

JW: How did he feel about you?BDF: Art was very gracious. He said it was a real pleasure to be working with me. That made me feel fantastic. He was familiar with my records. I had already read several times in print glowing quotes by Art about my playing.

JW: Did you discuss the approach to the songs before you started?BDF: Yes, I had some input on the tempo. Some of the tunes he wanted to do at a faster or slower tempo than I did. I don’t recall which ones they were exactly.

JW: Which songs did you want to do?BDF: If I recall, Memories of You and Once in a While.

JW: As you’re playing with Art, did you get the feeling he was not just playing but challenging and provoking you?BDF: Oh yes. Art loved that game. At the time, he went at me with both barrels [laughs]. It wasn’t a nasty thing. It was a game. An enjoyable game. It also allowed us to get into the music thoroughly.

JW: Was it tricky anticipating what Tatum would do next? BDF: I wouldn’t let any time elapse without knowing where he was exactly in a song and what he was doing. You had to listen to everything. Otherwise you were at risk of losing your place.

JW: Was Tatum testing you, seeing if you could handle one thing or another?BDF: Throughout the whole session. Sometimes he would put his left hand on his lap and play just with his right hand while looking at me and grinning, as if to say, “How about this?”

JW: What is Art doing technically that’s most challenging?BDF: The chord progressions. He had a way of using great musical devices. They were so accurate that they didn’t sound like devices. His progressions sounded like they absolutely flowed. They were very normal to him. It was difficult to catch onto that—his way of playing progressions through the song.

JW: How so?BDF: Art had two or three sets of chords for the same tune. His fingering might be different, or he’d use completely different, alternate chords.

JW: For example?BDF: For instance he’d have four or five different ways of playing a C-7 chord. Both of us, and Nelson Riddle and Tommy Gumina, an accordion player I worked with, were involved in polychordal devices when playing jazz. For instance, if we had a C-7 chord for any basic thing we were playing, you would have your choice of five different alternate triads superimposed on that one chord. So you could weave in an out of those triads. Tatum had that down. It was absolutely amazing how he did it and how natural he sounded. It was complete and natural.

JW: Did Granz play back the recording after each take?BDF: Yes. And a couple of times we weren’t satisfied with a playback, which is why we did many of the tunes twice.

JW: Did you ever have any self-doubt? BDF: Not so much. Art was so accurate with what he did. If you had the musicianship to go along with that and followed him, you could almost anticipate what he was going to do, That intensity made it an interesting way to play.

JW: Would Tatum tell you during the date that he was digging what you were doing?BDF: Oh yeah. He’d comment on how something was good, something else was terrific and how great we played together.

JW: Much of the match has to do with the enormous coloration and beauty of your sounds together.BDF: Oh absolutely. We had to live the song. In fact, technique is just part of it. Your approach is part of it. But the depth of the song that you’re playing is key. You have to understand the song that you’re playing. No matter how much jazz you’ve played, you never want to destroy the effect of a melody. That’s what Bird [Charlie Parker] and Tatum did. They followed the contours of the melody when playing jazz as opposed to playing a bunch of licks in certain keys.

JW: Was there a point with Tatum that day where his playing became overly complicated to your ear?BDF: When Art played, almost every tune was complicated [laughs]. To work with Art, there had to be input. The dynamic had to be a coercive thing. You had to be in there with him to pull it off. That didn’t take long to do. I had been so familiar with his playing that it was a natural feeling.

JW: At the end, did you two chat?BDF: We talked for a while, about the tunes, about which takes we wanted. Naturally I wanted takes where I played better than the other take [laughs].

JW: The date was the first time you had played together. Was there talk about recording together again? BDF: We both wanted to do it again. We also wanted to play together more. We didn’t have a chance though. That was the only time that we got together or had the time to do so.

JW: Do you regret that?BDF: Yes, I always did. But circumstances are such that you don’t get the chance.

JW: Thinking back, what kind of guy was he?BDF: Art was a lot of fun. He laughed a lot. I remember he drank more beer on that date than I could imagine. Once in a while he took a shot of gin. But the effects never showed. There was no sign of faltering or being drunk.

JW: Was he encouraging?BDF: Yes. When we started, he wanted the sound to gel, he wanted it to work. I think he knew that I understood him. I think he was pleasantly surprised how much I knew about him and his playing. I told him how I had listened to him as a kid. But most of all, I told him how much I admired him through my clarinet. That's what you hear on the record.

JazzWax tracks:The Art Tatum/Buddy De Franco Quartet is available as a download at iTunes as part of the Tatum Group Masterpieces series (Vol. 7). Or the album is available on CD here.

JazzWax clip: If you want a taste of just how sublime this session is on all counts, dig A Foggy Day, which perfectly illustrates the synergy between Tatum and Buddy as well as the magnificent game of musical tag these two undertook in 1956. Be sure to dig that fractured intro by Tatum...

About

Marc Myers writes regularly for The Wall Street Journal and is author of "Anatomy of a Song" (Grove) and "Why Jazz Happened." Founded in 2007, JazzWax is a two-time winner of the Jazz Journalists Association's best blog award.